Mistrial Declared In Texas Surgeon’s Capital Murder Trial

A judge declared a mistrial Wednesday in the capital murder trial of an Amarillo plastic surgeon charged in an alleged murder-for-hire plot to kill a Lubbock pathologist who was dating his ex-girlfriend.

State District Judge Jim Bob Darnell announced the mistrial Wednesday after jurors deliberated for about seven hours but couldn't reach a unanimous verdict in the capital murder case of Dr. Thomas Michael Dixon.

Dixon, 50, was accused of hiring his business partner, David Neal Shepard, to kill Dr. Joseph Sonnier III in July 2012 for three bars of silver valued at $9,000.

Sonnier, 57, worked as the chief pathologist for Covenant Health System in Lubbock.

Shepard is serving life in prison without parole as part of a plea deal.

A landscaper and a maid found Sonnier’s body in July 2012 after a landscaping crew found a broken window at the doctor’s house.

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